utexaspunk

Sure, but in this case, the testing failed to detect an error which more rigorous testing would have detected. Like I said- automated testing, trying every possible combination, would have detected the failure discussed in the article.

It seems to me that this is really a testing failure which, ironically, could be avoided by automating testing. An automated testing procedure could have ensured that every possible combination of inputs and failures was tried out.

I think you're missing Tufte's point. He's not saying PowerPoint is useless- he's saying the way it gets used 95% of the time is useless. Too often they end up putting their outlines directly into their slides, bullet point by bullet point, and insert graphics as a distracting afterthought. PowerPoint makes it really easy to do this, people are lazy, and this is what the audience has come to expect.

That doesn't mean slideware HAS to be used that way. Steve Jobs tends to do quite well with it. Tufte himself uses PowerPoint for his conferences. I imagine he'd agree with most of what was said in the article. Keep it clean and visual, as a way of cueing the audience with mental images and (extremely sparingly) emphasizing the keyest of key points with text. It should be a springboard for the presentation and not the presentation itself.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water- these programs were created and has become so popular because they do something people want, and they're the best tools people have, even if they are wielded clumsily.

Well all hail Chromium OS, then. Screw google...

It sounds to me almost as though you're supposed to feel so cool about getting such an informal e-mail from Steve personally that you just happily do what he wants. The guy's full of himself.

Yeah... What's the implication of that? If someone wants to bother my PC, they either have to log in themselves or get full access to all my private stuff? On one hand, I can have my stuff everywhere, but on the other hand, if all we had were OS's like this, wouldn't we have a world where nobody can do anything online anonymously? Seems like that could be bad... maybe I just misunderstand...

With a car that small and light, power steering isn't really necessary. It adds weight and diminishes the driver's ability to feel what the car is doing and feel the road through the wheel.

I agree with you on the first two points, but interpolating polynomials is not analogous to the ability to multiply single-digit numbers, which is indicative of a certain level of mathematical literacy which one would expect from even a third grader.

Photoshop (at least CS3, anyway) won't even install on a computer with a resolution less than 1024x768. Found that out when I tried to put it on my eee.

Sounds a little paranoid, to me. He could create a throwaway google account and buy a dev phone, or buy one of the many non-google-branded Android phones either already on the market or coming out this quarter, which can be used without a google account. Once you've got the phone, there's absolutely no requirement that you use a google account whatsoever. The only functionality which requires it are the google apps (gmail, maps, etc, and using the market). There's even a 3rd-party app market already out there (http://slideme.org/)

I don't see how letting google knowing who he is -especially when they probably ALREADY know- is any worse than letting Palm know who he is. For him to tear his hair out over Palm's bullshit, especially when in all likelihood Palm's will probably lose in the end, seems like a futile and masochistic exercise.

There's nothing about Android that guarantees that Android phones will always be inferior to the iPhone. HTC has made great strides toward rivaling the iPhone's hardware. I suspect, with more and more Android phones coming on the market, and with Android's openness, the apps and improved stability will soon follow, and the iPhone will be left in the dust.

I'm not sure which Apps they are talking about as exclusives- in the Android Market, when I search for "Google, Inc.", I see Maps, Voice, Sky Map, My Maps Editor, Scoreboard, Listen, and Finance. What's left? GMail itself? It seems pretty dumb if they're saying they give away all that other stuff and not GMail... or maybe they're just asserting their rights, should they choose not to give away the apps at some point in the future. Doesn't seem to make much sense, given free, useful applications are their bread and butter on the web...